The 'system' will give you only the exit status not the STDOUT. See below the difference between backticks, system call and exec. 
$var  = `ls`;
print "\n---\n $var \n---\n ";
The $var will have the output of 'ls' command.

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$var = system('ls');
print "\n---\n $var \n---\n ";

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In the above code, ls command will be executed and $var will have the zero value but not the output of the 'ls' command. 
$var = exec('ls');
print "\n---\n $var \n---\n ";

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Here ls command will get executed but $var will have nothing. More, the program will get terminated after exec execution.
So I guess, you have to use backticks instead of system call.

In reply to Re: Subroutine Return Values by siva kumar
in thread Subroutine Return Values by Anonymous Monk

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